Essence Atkins Disses Tyler Perry's Decision to Cast Kim Kardashian

Is Essence Atkins picking a fight with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood?

The Mr. Box Office actress put Tyler Perry on blast in an interview with S2S Magazine, calling into question his decision to offer a role to Kim Kardashian to gain access to her fans. "I found it interesting that Tyler did that with Temptation, hiring Kim Kardashian because she has 16 million Twitter followers, which would seem like a brilliant marketing plan,” Atkins told the magazine. "He has one of the biggest Twitter personalities out there in his movies, and he had one of the worst box office weekends."

Atkins is not completely on the mark with her observation, however, since Temptation opened with nearly $23 million in ticket sales and was Perry's highest-earning non-Madea film. "It’s not a failure, but it did worse than his movies usually do just based on him," she clarifies. "I thought that was an interesting finding. You’re experiment didn’t work."

The actress hopes Perry and his studio execs learn a lesson from the exercise. "People want to see good stories. It’s not necessarily that they want to see Kim Kardashian in a movie. They want to see her in a bikini. They want to see her with Kanye [West]. They want to see her on her show talking about her life with her sisters, but that doesn’t mean that they want to see her in a movie," she says. "The fact that people want to see their lives and the volatility of that…. I don’t think that it translates at all."

Tyler Perry's Temptation, which also stars Brandy and Jurnee Smollett-Bell, grossed over $48 million at the box office since its release. Compare that to a rumored $11 million production budget, and many would call it a hit.